


I'll keep your memory vague

by mollivanders



Category: Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-15
Updated: 2012-11-15
Packaged: 2017-11-18 16:43:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/563189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollivanders/pseuds/mollivanders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She slips away from him in pieces, in Paris. There is no place for here, in the bustle of crowds and the way he wantonly throws himself into life.</p><p>(He’s young. He’ll get over it.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll keep your memory vague

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jada_jasmine](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=jada_jasmine).



> **Title: I'll keep your memory vague**  
>  Fandom: Little Women  
> Rating: PG  
> Characters: Jo/Laurie, Amy/Laurie  
> Author's Note: Written for the multi-fandom teen ficathon and originally posted [here](http://fluffyfrolicker.livejournal.com/27132.html?thread=612348). Word Count - 449  
> Disclaimer: I don't own the show or the characters.

She slips away from him in pieces, in Paris. There is no place for her here, in the bustle of crowds and the way he wantonly throws himself into life.

(He’s young. He’ll get over it.)

The sound of her laughter will not fade, no matter how hard he tries. Three drinks deep on cheap liquor and he’ll hear her bubbling up with joy across the room. He spins, turns, loses his balance – falls.

It’s not her.

She doesn’t write him and he doesn’t write her and most nights he wishes he’d never met her. It’s lonely and cold in Paris, this time of year, and he fills the emptiness as young men always have. When one of the girls tells him he looks so _young_ , too young, he stumbles out of bed and stares into the mirror.

“Well I’m not,” he tells his reflection.

(The girl is already asleep.)

He stops shaving, stops cutting his hair, takes to wearing a long coat that makes the artists take to him. His grandfather doesn’t take to it, of course, and he tries to impose order on Laurie’s life.

It’s spring when he meets Amy – spring when he falls into her arms, lets her boss him around and make up stories about how – what – his life should be. It’s so much easier with her than it ever was with Jo and Laurie lets himself rest at her side, the world passing him by.

(So much easier, in the end, to sleep through the pain.)

“I’m not my sister,” she tells him when he proposes and Laurie hasn’t heard Jo’s name in so long, spoken to her even longer, that it’s easy to pass off the lie.

“That’s why I like you,” he says, and Amy smiles prettily.

He must be a masochist, to become a March, to be tied to her forever. _Brother_ , she’d called him, as though what they had could ever be friendly or innocent. Branded, taken, robbed of his ability to stand without her – Laurie would admit to all this, and more.

(Once upon a time, he did.)

And somehow, it is the best of both worlds. His heart does not mend and it does not recover, and he thinks it is because he left it with her long ago and never went back for it. Left it, and didn’t need it. Amy is sweet and happy and stern all at once, bright smiles contrasting with serious eyes, and he thinks perhaps he should love her better.

“Let’s go travel some more,” he whispers in her ear as they fall asleep together, and she shifts sleepily against him. “Whatever you want, Laurie,” she says.

He leaves Jo in Massachusetts.

_Finis_


End file.
